Age of Empires 2: How To Knight Rush

thegamer.com:

One of the timeless strategies in Age of Empires 2 that remains effective, prevalent, and often unstoppable is the one called Knight Rush. This method is popular for players of strong cavalry civilizations like the Franks or Persians, and it's also routine in multiplayer games and favoured most by “pocket” players who have allied players on either side and who may not have to worry as much about getting attacked early on.

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A successful knight rush presents several challenges, like getting to the Castle Age quickly, having enough resources on arrival to produce knights, and conducting a ruthless raid once the army is ready. Provided you can avoid running them into specific counter units like pikemen or camels, and steer clear of any defensive buildings, knights are strong enough to carve through villagers and beat most other units in Feudal and Castle Age. First, however, you need to get there.

Unlike rushing to Feudal Age with a strategy of early aggression, a standard Knight Rush requires more time spent in Dark Age to maximize your economy earlier. This will bring a faster transition from the Feudal Age to the Castle Age, which unlocks knights as a unit with most civilizations. Assign your first six villagers to gather food from sheep, and the next three or four to chop wood, with subsequent villagers being sent to lure boar back to the town centre for food, gather extra food from berry bushes, and chop wood. Building a mill next to your starting berry bushes, and one or two lumber camps next to the nearest line of trees helps with resource gathering. As the sheep, boar and berries food runs out, assign those villagers to build farms.

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